The "Concerns" of Coastal Education Practitioners -from Discourse at the Tokyo Bay Museum Roundtable Meeting-

<p>The concerns of coastal education practitioners were extracted from discourse at the Tokyo Bay Museum Roundtable. Although practitioners' areas of expertise and forms of activities varied, the following five concerns were common: how to connect the participants’ experience to their "learning"; hard to attract the age group intended in the planning; no way of knowing the participants’ honest evaluation of the program/exhibit for improvement; not knowing the participants’ connection of interest after the hands-on activity; very few individuals are inclined to become successors to lead the activity. From these concerns, the following three challenges for coastal education actors, such as museums, were identified: strengthening resource capacity within the organization; building and strengthening linkages with school/home education; fostering partnerships with program participants. The latter two have the potential to complement the former as “social capital”. In the capacity development of ICM, social capital should be considered a resource that deserves more attention. While opportunities for discourse among coastal education practitioners, such as this Roundtable, would contribute to strengthening practitioners' capacities, support may be needed to encourage them to attend and frankly exchange opinions in such opportunities.</p>